Slashdot Mirror
New Diablo 3 Images; Design Wins Over Darkness
KingofGnG writes "The new Diablo III screenshots highlight the strong chromatic variations existing between the dungeons and the various stages ... It appears obvious, however, that all those details enriching the scenes, the crumbling parapets of the paths within the dungeons, the plants and the ragged drapes lightened by candles, would lose the best part of their raison d'etre if put in monochrome palettes inclined to black."
I am all about games having dark and brooding atmospheres, and maybe even a bit scary. But I am more about a game being a damn fun and well designed one because the developers had a vision and weren't playing appease-the-fanboys during the development process. Plus the gritty, dark, angsty look has been done to death. I like color.
It's absurd such a small outcry has gotten this much press already.
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
Just release the damn game so I can play it!
Artsy discussions about screenshots aren't something I care about.
There are, as I see it, two possibilities, either the game sucks, or it doesn't.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
I'm glad Blizzard is sticking to their guns.
I first found out about this when that video was released a week or two ago in which a fan tweaked the official video to show what the game "should" look like instead of the "colorful" look that Blizzard is going with.
I watched the video and thought only one thing: it was ugly. Look, I understand this game is supposed to take place in dungeons and such, but you are allowed to have SOME color. It really pointed out that argument I've seen a few times over the last few years about the recent consoles. They are so powerful and push so many polygons, but they only seem to work when you disable any non-yellow, brown, or grey color.
I've got to say, I really like the look of the Diablo III video and screens Blizzard has made. There are colors. You can tell what's going on. Enemies stand out, the art stands out. It all looks quite good. But at the same time, they didn't go overboard making it look too cartoony. I mean, it doesn't look happy.
I'm glad Blizzard is sticking to their guns despite what some group of hardcore fans says. I'm actually interested in Diablo III. I've never played the previous games, but I'd like to give it a try.
But if it had been that nearly black-and-white mockup a fan made, I'd avoid it. I don't have such a nice computer so I can only view dimly lit colorless environments with very little visible detail.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Diablo III Designer Defends New Look and Feel http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/04/1858250 Personally, after spending way too much time on Diablo 2, I must say I now prefer darkness --accompanied with sleeping
The game shouldn't be so dark its hard to see. It should be slightly shadowy in some areas, but otherwise alright as far as seeing goes. Torches/lights should overbright the area a little, rather than making it normally lit. If it were real, you'd be pretty used to the dark, but torches would damn ear blind you.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Any mirrors? It seems to have gone down the second it went up. Or perhaps even prior to being posted.
Crafty little site... who went to take some pictures and artworks from the official site, added his watermark on it, submitted a news item and got slashdotted. Bravissimo! It's grand to see Arthur from Ghouls'N Ghosts announcing Diablo III.
Site doesn't work, and this topic was already posted. Why is someone submitting an unoriginal article that links to their own website, which crashes because it isn't set up for slashdot front page traffic?
Sounds fishy and inappropriate.
http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/media/screenshots.xml
Skip the middleman. The first four are the "new" screenshots... which look exactly like the old screenshots. Which is to say... nothing has changed
Really... a slashdot story on Blizzard releasing another 4 screenshots? Will we get a story for every new screenshot they release or only in intervals of 4 or greater?
'It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.' -This is Spinal Tap
The current art style give it that weird World of Warcraft cartoonish look. Doesn't quite suit what I am used to from the other Diablo games and not really what I expected. But overall I don't care as long as it comes out soon.
Now that's gory.
I don't need no more diablo images in my head, if you insist, I'll just wear tinfoil and the cross. Now go away, let me ponder that female elf. Thank you, thank you, don't let your horns damage my door. Thank you, bye.
- Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
- Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
I fail to see why they couldn't add a toggle to activate a desaturating filter. That would shut up the art-school dropouts, and frankly I think it would be interesting to switch between the bright/colorful and dark modes.
Is it that difficult to implement brightness/contrast/gamma ? I'm thinking of Far Cry, which offered different rendering modes, some of them cold and bluish, others hyper-saturated and cartoony. It was a unique feature at the time, so why can't Blizzard just copy that ?
-Billco, Fnarg.com
And we all know what inclined-to-black gameplay looks like, don't we?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I quit gaming a few years ago because I was tired of pour my life energy into the bottomless pit of interactive illusions, but it hasn't stopped me from appreciating a nice bit of design.
--I really like the isometric approach; it allows the design team to use artwork generated by actual painters and illustrators rather than 3D engine-workers. It'll be a neat day when you can create in 3D the same kind of evocative visual character in a tree stump or a bit of masonry as an artist can do with a pencil and few tubes of gauche, but that day hasn't arrived yet. And so, Diablo III is going to look oh-so-much prettier than any 3D game can at the moment.
-FL
The elephant in the room is that the Blizzard guys probably would have preferred staying true to the dark and brooding atmosphere, but it's no longer possible with todays technology. On panels black is really gray... often not even a dark gray, and then there's the trade-off most panels make in giving up a few bits per colour channel for speed. "Dark and brooding" looks pretty awful on your average modern rig.
This came up weeks ago.
The article on the comparison between Diablo III design and fan "improved" colours:
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/08/04/diablo-iii-designer-turns-tables
and Penny-Arcade's take on the "protest":
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/8/6/
You know, I've been playing doom lately, and that's quite a colorful game... Then I saw some people playing diablo 2 it is actually very colorful as well, I am glad blizz didn't waste their time pleasing a bunch of people that just remember diablo being darker than it really was...
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
the plants and the ragged drapes lightened by candles
Lightened by candles? Lightened by candles? That's it, KingofGnG will never be my Dungeon Master.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Is it just me, or has there been too much argument over the brightness of Diablo III? I would think everyone's individual monitor setting preferences account for more difference to the levels in the game than the fine tuning done on the development end.
I browsed the screenshots and was happy to see, not the brightness -- or the contrast or the bleed or gamut or the bloody candle-power, but the artistic design of the creatures and the scenery. I'd much rather have attention to detail in the area of creativity and originality of visual style, than attention to the brightness of colours I can simply adjust on my screen. Take Heroes IV and Disciples II (click here if you're not familiar with Disciples), as examples; I found Heroes IV really uninspired and boring, whereas Disciples II, although very similar had such incredible artistic design that it was much more enjoyable to play.
In the land of the blind, the one eyed man still has no depth perception.
Actually, they said that players who have forced themselves through a difficult dungeon to reach a new area deserve the greatest sense of accomplishment a game designer can possibly bestow: A palette swap.
I wish I was dumb enough to make up something like this.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
... is really about atmosphere. I admit that I never personally had any interest and didn't care either way for such things. But I know that lighting really does have an effect on atmosphere. Doom 3 had great atmosphere because of how the lighting was, even the original Diablo was dark and grey, it had some levels that were really bright, but it also compensated by levels that were really dark (as you go into the last dungeon to fight diablo in teh first one).
One of the cool things about the original diablo (for it's time) was lighting effects from spells/arrows, etc across floors and whatnot and going 'oh shit oh shit oh shit' when monsters were coming or were firing your way and you were trying to make an escape.
I want my Duke Nukem Forever!
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Seems like a quick hack can be done to allow the alternate colorization just using extensions that are already there in opengl/directx. I'd just make it a check box, and then the big whiners can be satisfied.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Games are no longer dark, brown, and full of bloom?
Finally, next-gen has arrived!
I dislike people bemoaning the art style of the screen shots and gameplay footage that have been thus far released for Diablo3. We have only been shown with a small number of environments. They are presumably from the early game levels, since that's likely the most polished and there fore most worthy of presentation. It's very possible that there is a progression towards darker, more edgy environments later in the game.
The president is there from its predecessors. The tile sets in the original Diablo became progressively darker, the deeper under the cathedral you went. Even the varied environments in Diablo2 showed a movement, the further you got in the game, toward a darker, more suffocating atmosphere.
I think people will find most anything to complain about, and there's really not enough details available yet to come to any sort of reasonable, informed option. We'll all just have to wait for more bread crumbs.
It's about the art direction overall. Diablo was gritty and realistic. They could make the whole game black and white, but you've still got characters running around in cutscenes and combat that look like they came from Warcraft.
This http://www.diii.net/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=871&size=big&cat=563 and this http://www.diii.net/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=703&cat=565 are much more in the style of Warcraft, which aside from the bright and happy palette is the primary reason a lot of folks were surprised when D3 was unveiled.
I know I personally also wanted contrast to Blizzards other work, because that existed before now. Blizzard has amazing artists and they're going to make an amazing looking game, but when all your franchises start looking the same, they become kind of redundant from one another. I think most Diablo fans wanted something hellish, and dark, and corrupt. Gritty and realistic. While the game will look, and most likely play, just fine, the atmosphere is what will be different due to the changes in the look.
I dunno... Something like this http://www.worldart.com.au/images/kris-kuksi-sculpture-surreal-deadly-sins1.jpg
Right now the game looks like it was Disney's take on Diablo, rather than Geiger's.
You will buy the game, and pray they make another. End of story. Whether or not Diablo 3 is "pretty" will not cross your mind as you hand over the cash unless you were simply not going to buy the game anyway. This has nothing to do with your opinions, you just want to bitch, bitch, bitch. This is aimed at the bitch in all of you.
The downside of being killed is the upside of being dead.
A lot of the reason Halo looks so good is its vibrant palette, used to color enemies, vehicles, buildings, and surroundings uniquely. Maybe a bright orange pylon or a huge shimmering blue ship. Colored laser blasts everywhere. It looks very nice and nobody's complaining about that game, which shows that if done well, it can please gamers and stand out as well.
Twinstiq, game news
I think the game is resembling Warcraft simply because Blizzard designers are learning a lot from the game mechanics specifically behind World of Warcraft.
They're expanding the color palette most likely to assist with the pacing of the game, and that constantly shifting contrast ("first you're in a really bright desert, then you're inside a really dark pyramid") propel that sense of progress that players have as they move through the game.
It's one thing to have that gritty, dirty visual style in a dungeon instance that's supposed to last for an hour or two, it's another to have that exact same gritty visual style for the entire several hundred hours that you'll be playing the game.
One of the ways that playability is enhanced, and monotony is prevented is by having that really extreme sense of contrast, as well as the bright color palette.
Furthermore, I understand that most Diablo players don't want a color palette that looks like it was extracted from a Night Elf starting zone, but by the same token I feel like Blizzard wants to reach out to the millions of folks in the WoW contingency that might want to start playing Diablo for the first time if it looks and feels like something they are already very familiar with.
Yes, gameplay is far more important than appearance. I don't mind their new style.
Here's my short D3 wish-list:
1) A true marketplace. Make it Ebay like. Post magic items, get bids, buy/sell/swap efficiently and safely.
2) Less repetition, mouse clicking, maintenance. For example, gambling for circlets:
click, gamble, exit, click, gamble, exit, click, gamble, exit...(until circlet appears)
And rearranging potions after picking up a body should be automatic in town.
3) Blizzard wants simple mouse based controls, but I just want better control.
For example, having a clutter of items on the ground interferes with actions like teleporting, or trying to enter a town-portal. I want to setup my character to avoid these kinds of problems.
4) smarter monsters with a greater variety of behavior
5) better inter-player communication, network
----------------------
Some funny things about Diablo2 that don't make sense:
1) Rare items are actually the most unique and Unique items are the most rare!
2) Mercs hit with Iron Maiden keep swinging until they die
3) Mercs don't listen to the provided voice commands like "Run Away!"(in regards to #2)
Here's a magic ring that does me no good...or would you prefer to sell it back to me?
This Account Has Been Suspended
Another one bites the dust.
I am just sad that they excluded the necromancer. :(
Fingers crossed for the expansion...
Oh please, only on Slashdot could you find someone who thinks those Diablo 3 screenshots look happy happy joy joy. Did you hate Doom 3 because it was too bright? Did you refuse to play Oblivion because the Sun was actually shining in the daytime? Do you only play games that use a million shades of black, brown and red and have names like Darkling Deathspire, or Avenging Bloodscrim?
Go outdoors, on a moonlight night. Look to see what color cast the moonlight gives everything. It's bluish, just like that dungeon shot. And if you look at that shot, you'll see there's a HUGE window. That's why it's blue.
These screenshots look nothing like a Mario style color scheme. They're quite in keeping with traditional fantasy artwork, probably moreso than the original Diablo was. Elmore, Easley, Caldwell, Wood. go take a look at them.
"... It appears obvious, however, that all those details enriching the scenes, the crumbling parapets of the paths within the dungeons, the plants and the ragged drapes lightened by candles, would lose the best part of their raison d'etre if put in monochrome palettes inclined to black."
WTF does that mean?
09-f9-11-02-9* (G^GCA_++{>. RV>>>>+++ NO CARRIER
Now there is a pretentious ripoff ;)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
and the ragged drapes lightened by candles
oh come on! That's a fire hazard, this is going to be one hell of an easy game. How to defeat Diablo? Just wait outside with a pint and let his poor health and safety practices destroy his empire.
Grittier and darker is better for Diablo, but hopefully they can have that and colorful dungeons/monsters. I don't want it to look cartoony, but color isn't necessarily cartoony. And why not have some places that are gloomier?
Though the color in the game does detract from it... However, the characters really look stupid compared to the old game. They've gotten cartoonish and silly looking. I really liked the way characters looked in the old Diablo II. Why have they done this? Between the stupid looking characters/weapons and the poor use of color, I'm not sure how interesting this game seems now. I'm sure some people will eat it up anyway, unfortunately.
Well, hold on there. Are you saying that you don't believe players respond to visual rewards?
If that were the case, H-games wouldn't exist.
However, running through an obsidian tower drenched in green light fighting green goblins for twenty minutes just so you can move on to an obsidian tower drenched in blue light fighting blue goblins is neither reward nor incentive to keep moving. We're not in the days when a palette-swapped imp saves precious space on a cartridge so you can include an entire town's dialog. Nowadays, it's merely an admittance to their lack of originality and their insufficient design.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Oh really? Please do enlighten me exactly what do frog demons look like IRL (since we're talking _realism_), or what is the real incantation for casting chain lightning IRL, or exactly how much mana does a level 5 wizard have IRL, how much of it is used by a chain lightning, and how fast it would regen for you. IRL.
Also, hey, let's make the game realistic. Let's see:
It's the middle ages. Chances are you're a peasant. (Some 80% of the population was, after all, so sheer probabilities point that way.) work dawn to dusk just to feed your family, but you're still badly malnourished since last year's war saw most of your crop looted. Half the village just died of plague, and the survivors are screaming in agony all night. Some of them are throwing themselves off houses and bridges just to end the excruciating pain already. You sneezed this morning. You're still scared shitless, because that's the first symptom of the plague. Please God let it be hayfever or a cold, is what goes through your head as you mindlessly walk behing the plough like a zombie. You'll likely always be a peasant. You'd have to buy yourself off serfdom before you can go do anything else, at all. Three of your five kids so far died before even reaching their first birthday. Which is just as well, since you wouldn't have enough food to feed all 5. And if demons attacked your church, you'd get drafted by your lord into hauling rocks to repair it.
Oh, sorry, that's not much fun... let's try again:
You're a grizzled mercenary. You've seen half your unit die of dysentery in the last war. In fact, in the last battle, you fought without pants so you can shit yourself on the move. The peasants in this village hate your fucking guts, because it was your unit that looted them in between employment as mercenaries. Your old commander got himself a promotion for volunteering your unit to Forlorn Hope. Actually meaning "lost troop", as that's the first wave to assault the walls. If he survives, the commander gets an automatic promotion, but you just got to burry your horribly mutilated mates and got kicked out of the army as soon as peace was signed. That old scar didn't make you tougher, it just got infected and that was a fun year of suffering. All the wounds and bad food and shitting your guts out on campaigns, have shortened your life expectancy a lot, and make you feel like you're 20 years older already.
In all probability, a single hit by any demon under the church will likely kill or disable you. It doesn't take much destroyed tissue to make anybody collapse in shock. You don't get -5 hp from the hit and to wait 10 seconds for it to regen. You'll probably just get killed, or disabled long enough for the rest of the demons to eat you alive. If you survived at half health, you'll just bleed to death. Or maybe the infection will kill you. Even if you're so elite as to dodge or parry 99% of the attacks (which is unrealistic already), in all probability, by the 20'th demon one will land that disabling blow right through your defenses.
And if you don't die there, chances are you'll end up crippled. And get to beg from those same villagers, who'll roll their eyes and pretend to not even see you.
Won't that realism be fun?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
To address your second bullet point above ("No actual change to world within persistence of software?"), I've looked at some of the early demo videos of Diablo 3 in action, and they specifically showed off destructible environments. And that destruction appears to be persisted. So this has been addressed (at least partially) in Diablo 3.
Also, in WoW: Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard introduced a hack to simulate the (temporary) change of the game world, referred to by some as "phase technology." I watched a series of videos of someone playing the beta of WotLK, and it's pretty clear that there are some major world-altering plot points that can be played out. The only drawback is, these environment changes are only "persistent" for the people participating in those game events, and the effects don't appear to be permanent.
There are also events in WoW that are server-wide and can only be performed once on any given world server. A friend of mine participated in one of those, and reported that for many hours afterward, the animals in most areas were replaced by some type of insectoid creature.
Even having an option to play with no color pallet and gamma turned way down will not work.
Unless everyone is forced to play that game they have in their heads, they will not be happy. People who opt not to enable bland mode will almost be cheating the game as it "was meant to be played".
This argument over which style is best for the game cannot be won in any traditional sense of the word. At best it can be safely ignored.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
I didn't know entrails HAD raison d'etre :)
Out of all the companies in the market, Blizzard is still my favorite. They are consistent in quality and design. Their vision for a game sets the industry bar higher than most games on the market these days. Granted Warhammer will give WoW a run for it's money, but that's the beauty of the USA! The Diablo series is still my favorite and i cannot wait till D3. I hope it's incredibly detailed and doesn't stray too far from the first 2 in terms of game play and quality. By the way, your link doesn't work for the screen shots as of 4:06pm EST
Why do you gamedevs hate those of us who live in places with strong sunshine so very very much?
I love Blizzard, but too much dark makes Jack a downer cow ...
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
This is from Blizzard, right? Have you SEEN the cartoon world called World of Warcraft lately? We just bought Warhammer online, and my children think the graphics suck, because they aren't cartoony enough (as they've been conditioned to expect from 2 years of WoW). Sad, really.
Honestly both the new screenshots and the old Diablo games look equally shitty. Not everything has to look like either a Candyland board or a Marylin Manson album cover. Some original settings and more imaginative environments would probably be appreciated even more than the typical crap blizzard has already ran into the ground with all their existing IPs.
You are an idiot, because you obviously don't know the value because you never tried. Those were my Necromancer's two specialties in classic and LOD expansion.
I have tried a poison and bone necro. While you certainly can play that way, it is not a legitimate strategy when compared to the effectiveness of other necro builds (particularly the curses tree). It is also a selfish build for multiplayer as you provide no value whatsoever to the team, since you provide no synergies and every other class in the game can outdamage you.
Bone Spear has significantly more potential damage than Poison Nova, but Poison Nova allows a "fire and forget" playstyle with lower personal risk. Bone Spear leads to a severe mana-consumption problem, and even a barbarian can output more damage than poison nova.
Bone Spear - Magic Damage: 1972-2140, Mana Cost: 21.5
Poison Nova - Poison Damage: 1781-1953 over 2 seconds, Mana Cost: 20
(Numbers with maxed synergies from http://d2items.com/skills.php. My critique is assuming play on Hell difficulty, where a single Death Lord monster has 10,000-18,000 health (before defense, resistances, etc.) Combat characters must have damage output of approximately 10,000/second to be viable.)
Blizzard is such a shitty company for RPG's.
If you don't like Blizzard RPG games, then I don't understand why you are bothering with a post about an upcoming Blizzard RPG game.
You people are just plain lame, paying for the same crap ten-times over.
Thanks for the heads up. I'll be certain to emancipate myself at the earliest opportunity.
Share with me your GPA score, and I'll tell you what you don't know.
I do appreciate the low price that you charge for your knowledge.
After all, they did a hell of a job with every project so far and Im pretty confident they'll also nail this one.
What you see so far is only a tiny part from a far bigger game. There's more to come and Im sure there will be enough for everyone in there.
You have been served olives so far and some people are complaining that are not black olives. Wait until the whole table is set with candles, great music and loads of foods.
Satisfaction will be guaranteed. You will be rushing through hordes of minions with your heart pounding in your neck screaming for more blood.
But until then, u know, lets look at every square inch of the olive and find something wrong with it. Like a true warrior.
You cite some damage numbers, but the error you're making is that you assume are using skills data that relates to skill level 20. In advanced game, you SHOULD be looking at the numbers for skill level 35 or even 40 (depending on itemization...)
Which leads me to my next point, specifically, that FOR ALL D2 character builds, itemization is the only relevant consideration.
"Boner" necros are extremely powerful PvP characters. Since there is no *significant* resistance to "magic" damage there is little your opponents can do to mitigate the damage done by your bone spells. The dominant boner strategy is to stack FCR and +skills, wear an enigma, and if you're ranged elemental damage then some sort of resistance gear and they've got an EXTREMELY good chance of beating almost any other build (of any class) in PvP. They tele around, casting auto-targetting bone spirits and never let you get near enough to engage in melee.
Further, well geared poison necros are very viable for soloing the endgame. Sure, they are not the fastest killers, but they are extremely hardy. There are very few things that the game can throw at them that they won't be able to handle with relative ease.
In my opinion, the curse tree is one of the weakest, requiring AT MOST a single point in each skill.
I have no idea what is good for PvP. If the original poster played PvP, then based on your response I am wrong. In regards to itemization, this is kind of a blind spot in my response--the people that I played D2 with and myself all preferred not to trade items, so if we had a certain piece of gear, it was something that we or someone in the group had personally found. I'm more used to talking in terms of 5-10 +skills to a particular skill. E.g. a Hammerdin is extremely unimpressive with level 28 hammers.
Although I used level 20 numbers, the numbers don't scale exponentially, so my basic point remains accurate--poison doesn't deal as much damage as other classes, and your comment about about solo endgame play confirms this (to my mind anyway). I'm a bit curious about ever describing a caster-class as "hardy", but I'm willing to be educated on the point.
I endorsed the curse tree because of its versatility and power in PvE scenarios with a team. You certainly only need a point in each skill, but abilities that hugely increase your teammates' strengths are more important than being individually powerful.
Finally, despite trying a couple necros, I definitely haven't given them the level of attention that I've given to paladins for instance.